Vile Parle Police arrested nine men for alleged impersonation of policemen and raiding a Malad premises, following which they robbed around ₹12 crore from a Vile Parle based five star hotel. The incident occurred on February 17, after which the complainant approached police and lodged a complaint. During the probe, the accused were identified as angadia and were nabbed on Saturday. All the accused have been booked under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code.
A senior police official said that a group of two men wanted to wire money valued ₹12 crore through hawala and had approached a courier company to do the hawala transactions. Subsequently, the courier company which was given the job of hawala transaction, were counting the money at Malad, when another group of angadia courier company, who learnt about the hawala transaction, raided the premises posing as police officers. "The imposters claimed that it was a raid and seized the money being counted for hawala. They also had a fake gun, fake ACP badge. Some time later, it was revealed that the police raid was fake and the imposters robbed them of ₹12 crore," said an officer on condition of anonymity.
To settle the matter, both the angadia courier companies decided to meet at Vile Parle based five star hotel, Bawa International, on February 17. During the settlement, both angadia courier companies decided to split the money in half, but this arrangement however, did not work out. Before the other party could gather what was happening, the angadia members who posed as police officers and the ones given the contract, decamped with the hawala money valued at ₹12 crore.
After the incident, the victims approached Vile Parle police and lodged a complaint against the accused persons. A detailed probe revealed that the money stolen in question was hawala money, that belonged to a trustee of a temple, who wanted to wire the money through hawala channel in Canada and of the 12 accused, police nabbed nine men. While five people were arrested from the first angadia courier company, other four belonged to another group. Police said that more arrests are yet to be made in the case.
All the accused were booked under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code for robbery (section 392), impersonation of a public servant (section 170) and common intention (section 34).
